(Bloomberg) — Apple Inc. has recruited a longtime Ford Motor Co. govt who helped lead security efforts and automobile engineering, an indication the iPhone maker is once more ramping up improvement of an electrical automotive.
The tech large employed Desi Ujkashevic for the automotive mission, in accordance with individuals with data of the matter. Ujkashevic had labored at Ford since 1991, most just lately serving as its world director of automotive security engineering. Earlier than that, she helped oversee engineering of interiors, exteriors, chassis and electrical parts for a lot of Ford fashions.
The manager labored on Ford’s Escape, Explorer, Fiesta and Focus fashions, in addition to the Lincoln MKC and Aviator, in accordance with her LinkedIn profile. She additionally helped develop new electrical automobiles for the Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker. And Ujkashevic has expertise coping with regulatory points, one thing that might be key to Apple getting a automotive on the street.
The Cupertino, California-based firm declined to touch upon the rent. Ford, in the meantime, stated that Ujkashevic has retired from the automaker.
Enlisting Ujkashevic means that Apple is continuous to push towards a self-driving automotive regardless of a number of high-profile departures over the previous 12 months. The mission’s administration workforce has been virtually solely changed because it was run by Doug Discipline, an govt who left for Ford final 12 months.
Constructing an electrical, self-driving automotive is seen as a “subsequent large factor” for Apple — a brand new product class that may preserve its gross sales development from stalling. However the mission has suffered quite a few technique shifts and personnel adjustments because it kicked off round seven years in the past.
After Discipline give up, the corporate appointed Apple Watch and well being software program head Kevin Lynch to supervise the mission. Lynch is a well-regarded software program engineering supervisor however hasn’t beforehand led the event of a automobile. Nonetheless, the corporate has sought to accelerate the mission below Lynch — with the purpose of saying a product by 2025.
An Apple automotive would put the corporate in competitors with Tesla Inc. and Lucid Group Inc., in addition to conventional automakers racing to introduce electrical automobiles. Ford has been particularly aggressive in EVs these days with a push to impress the best-selling automobile in America: the F-150 pickup.
Apple is also attempting to grasp autonomous driving as a part of the mission — an auto-industry holy grail that tech firms resembling Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo even have been grappling with.
Through the years, Apple has struggled to decide on a imaginative and prescient for its automotive, which has been in improvement since round 2015. The present hope is to make one thing absolutely autonomous and take away each the normal steering wheel and pedals. The corporate additionally has sought to emphasise security with its automobile.
To that finish, the corporate is trying to develop stronger safeguards than what’s out there from Tesla and Waymo. That features constructing in loads of redundancy — layers of backup techniques that kick in to keep away from security and driving-system failures — Bloomberg reported final 12 months. Ujkashevic might be concerned with that element. Apple had employed Jaime Waydo to function automotive security chief in 2018, however the Waymo veteran departed final 12 months.
Ujkashevic is now one of many few senior managers on Apple’s automotive workforce to come back from the auto {industry}, however there are some others. Final 12 months, Apple hired Ulrich Kranz, a former BMW govt and onetime head of self-driving startup Canoo. Stuart Bowers, a former Tesla govt who labored on self-driving software program, and Jonathan Sive, an ex-manager at Tesla, Waymo and BMW, are also concerned.
At Ford, Ujkashevic was one of many firm’s highest-profile managers, serving as a named govt on its web site.
“Desi has a wealth of worldwide automotive {industry} management expertise,” her biography reads on the Ford website. The corporate credited her with bettering merchandise, high quality and the client expertise on the 118-year-old firm.
